


the sunbeam in your smile; or, the mysterious case of the jumpy frenchman

by polkadot



Series: la vache et le dauphin [6]
Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: M/M, Mystery, Ten in Ten Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 03:40:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/pseuds/polkadot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stan knows <i>something</i> is up with Richie. He's just not sure <i>what</i>. Benoit tries to help from France, Stan searches his memories for anything helpful, and a good many pastries are consumed.</p><p>A birthday present for a good friend. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the sunbeam in your smile; or, the mysterious case of the jumpy frenchman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alcatorda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alcatorda/gifts).



> The June part of this fic follows [the fire of a thousand suns](http://archiveofourown.org/works/825914). It's the sixth in [la vache et le dauphin](http://archiveofourown.org/series/45888), so it'll probably make more sense if you read the other fics first. :)
> 
> As always, everyone is actually speaking French and this is a translation.

_wednesday, 5th june, roland garros_

It was still dark when Stan woke up on quarterfinals day.

He lay still, keeping his eyes closed. In this quiet moment, he was everywhere and nowhere; he could be back home in Switzerland, or he could be in an anonymous hotel in Toronto, Miami, London, Chennai, Buenos Aires…it was the habit of a tennis player to be rooted nowhere, a tumbleweed blowing into town for a week and out again, never settling and never gathering moss. Not that Stan would have changed his life for another; it was all he’d known, and he was happy with it, however peripatetic.

Then he felt Benoit’s fingers curl around his wrist, and Stan remembered that he was rooted somewhere after all…

~//~

_friday, 6th september – the day before semifinals, us open_

No. That’s not where it started. 

Stan’s not exactly sure where it started – it’s not like life is tidily organised into neatly rounded chapters, like in books – but he’s sure it didn’t start in bed, on a sleepy Wednesday morning. His mind just has a tendency to wander off sometimes, because he’s stupidly happy and apparently that’s like a drug of some kind –

Across the deserted locker room, someone opens the door, and the sound of early-morning bustle filters through for a moment. It’s far quieter than it will be in a few hours, when first Vika and then Serena take to Arthur Ashe for their semifinals, but it’s still plenty loud. 

Stan blinks. He’s doing it again. What was he originally trying to figure out… ah yes, that it didn’t start on quarterfinals Wednesday. No, if this thing he’s been musing over has a starting point (and all things do), it started the Saturday _before_ that, in the corner of a locker room in Roland Garros…

~//~

_saturday, 1st june, third round at roland garros_

“You should go,” Stan said regretfully, pulling away from Benoit’s mouth far enough to see the bright shine of his eyes.

Ten minutes ago those eyes had been clouded, still full of anger from the ignominious way their owner had just been dumped out of Roland Garros by a combination of a too-strong opponent and a too-punitive umpire (in Benoit’s opinion – and thus Stan’s, as he was a loyal boyfriend). Ten minutes ago Stan had dropped his own preparations in order to be there for Benoit, whatever ‘being there’ had entailed. In Casablanca, ‘being there’ had meant hugging him and vowing revenge on Tommy Robredo. Now, it had apparently meant finding a deserted corner of the locker room and kissing the hell out of Benoit until he cheered up.

Both times, however, Stan counted as a success. Casablanca had been a confusing experience, but given that it’d helped them tumble into a relationship, it held fond memories. And today the kissing had obviously helped a great deal. Unlike ten minutes ago, now no one would have guessed Benoit’s tale of woe. This Benoit might look tired, but his eyes were shining, and his wet mouth was quirked up at the edges in a small but real smile.

“I should go?” Benoit repeated, his expressive mouth falling into a pout. “You’re already tired of me?”

Stan suspected that it was hard to pout properly when your voice trembled with laughter. He grinned and traced a finger down the side of Benoit’s face, watching the way Benoit’s eyes dropped to half-mast for a second, feeling something in his chest constrict.

Benoit kept trying, though, putting his hand on his hip in false indignation. “You just told me you love me, and now you want to get rid of me?”

Ah yes. There was that. That might have helped just as much as the kissing. (Maybe a bit more.) Most couples probably didn’t say those words for the first time while standing in a Grand Slam locker room, but then Stan was pretty sure that he and Benoit were anything other than ‘most couples’.

However, they did need to start moving, so he rolled his eyes and rapped Benoit on the back of the head. “Press, _poto_ , press and recovery.” Stan looked more closely at the involuntary slump of Benoit’s shoulders, feeling the tired twitch of Benoit’s muscles under his fingers. “And a nap, I think.”

“I’m not going to take a nap!” Benoit said, indignantly. “You have a match!”

It must have been the outraged squawk of his voice that covered up the sound of footsteps, because it wasn’t until Stan opened his mouth to reply that he saw Benoit’s eyebrows fly up, and he suddenly registered the presence of someone else behind them.

“Uh, sorry,” the someone else said, sounding flustered.

Stan supposed ten minutes was a long time for no one to come to this corner of the locker room, even though it was secluded, even though they’d made it deep enough into the tournament that there were far fewer players around. They couldn’t have expected privacy forever. 

It was hard to remember all that, though, when he turned around to see Richie standing there, his eyes as big as saucers.

Springing apart now would have been useless, even if Stan had felt like it. They were standing too close together, almost breathing each other’s air – even the best friends they were known to be wouldn’t have stood so close, canted towards each other as if pulled by little invisible magnets. And Stan didn’t feel like it; Benoit’s fingers were still tucked into the curve of his elbow, Benoit’s kisses still lingering on his lips, Benoit’s words still ringing in his ears. 

So Stan raised his eyebrow instead. “Hello,” he said, mildly.

Richie looked frozen in place, his face blank. “Hello,” he said, sounding as bemused as his expression.

There was a moment’s awkward silence. Stan wasn’t quite sure what you were supposed to say in a situation like this, but then, he supposed there wasn’t a handbook for ‘things to say when an acquaintance discovers you and your boyfriend in a clinch in the locker room of a sport that doesn’t have any officially gay players.’ Maybe he should write that handbook.

The hand tucked into Stan’s elbow tightened, and that was all the warning Stan got before Benoit’s other hand dipped just underneath the waistband of his shorts, fingers curling possessively around his hipbone. Stan swallowed, mouth suddenly dry.

“Want to join us?” Benoit said, his voice challenging. (Perhaps only Stan heard the telltale shake of laughter.)

Richie blinked. “I’ll just…” he said, and blinked again. “Sorry, I’ll just…” He made a vague gesture, then apparently realised he’d regained the ability to move, remembered how to use his feet, and rapidly retreated. (Or, more accurately – if less charitably – fled.)

Benoit dropped his face to Stan’s shoulder, laughing into the crook of his neck. His lips tickled as they shook, and his breath was warm against Stan’s skin. His fingers were even warmer where they still lingered on Stan’s hip.

“That wasn’t nice,” Stan said, after a moment, trying to keep a stern tone, trying not to smile.

“It was fun though,” Benoit said, muffled, and then abruptly removed his hands from the interesting places they’d gone in order to push at Stan’s chest. “All right, you’re right, we need to move before someone worse comes and finds us. Like _Magnus_.” He shuddered theatrically, and Stan grinned, feeling the tremors against his own body. “I love him, of course, because he’s your coach and he’s awesome, but I don’t want him walking in on us.”

“You love everybody these days,” Stan said, running his hand along Benoit’s shoulder blade.

Benoit beamed at him, slash of white teeth and mischief. “Yes, I love Magnus in _exactly_ the same way as I love you, oh my gosh, you should see his ass, it brings _everyone_ to the yard, I want to just _smack_ it and…”

There were some things Stan very much did not want to think about, and one of them included Magnus Norman’s ass, so he stole a kiss to shut Benoit up. 

The real world could wait for ten more seconds.

~//~

_september_

Stan smiles at the memory, sinking into the locker-room sofa and tipping his head back. Magnus will be back soon from his interview – apparently your player rocketing into the semifinals by defeating the defending champion buys a coach street cred and brings the media swarming – but for the moment Stan’s on his own to relish the early morning hush. Someone’s shut the door that opened a little while ago, and it’s quiet again. Nothing like when he had an armful of Benoit back in Roland Garros!

Actually, now that Stan looks around, he’s not completely alone. Someone’s gone through to the showers, leaving their bags on a table. He has a strong suspicion who it is.

He drops back into his thoughts…

~//~

_later on saturday, 1st june_

“Okay, you can’t blame me,” Benoit said immediately.

A moment ago Stan had been thinking that Ben picking up his phone on the first ring was sweet, but now he frowned. “What happened? Don’t tell me Richie papped us and is selling the photos to a newspaper.” He could see the headlines before his eyes, complete with crappy iPhone pictures of Benoit grinning, tucked against his side. Richie had looked stunned, not entrepreneurial, but who knew...

Benoit laughed. “Richie’s face. Still funny. Also, Richie totally wouldn’t sell pictures to a newspaper. He’d sell them to Neil.”

“You’d better not be implying what I think you’re implying,” Stan said, darkly.

Benoit’s chuckle told him all he needed to know. “Neil’s got a thing for you, kitten - face facts.” He moved; Stan could hear the creak of a chair, and he wondered where Benoit was. He knew where _he_ was, delaying his post-match shower and presser in order to hear Benoit’s voice for a minute or two. Not that Stan was clingy. Just…it was Benoit.

A Benoit who’d just let out a massive yawn. Stan found himself smiling. “Sleepy, are we?”

“That’s the thing,” Benoit said, drawing out the words. “You can’t blame me, but I kind of…” The words were mumbled, but Stan could just make out, “…slept through your match.” 

Now Stan really was smiling. “You took a nap?”

“I saw the last bit!” Benoit protested. “I saw you win! That’s the important part, right? And it’s not like I was _worried_. Of course you were always going to beat Jerzy, you’re waaaaaay better than him.”

“You took a nap,” Stan repeated, not distracted by compliments obviously designed to butter him up.

He didn’t need to see Benoit to know he was sulking. “You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?” Benoit said, and the frown was audible.

“Nope,” Stan said, then nodded at Magnus, who’d come over to find him. Magnus raised an interrogatory eyebrow at the sight of Stan still in his match clothes, then looked at Stan’s phone in a slightly exasperated manner.

They might only have been working together a short time, but already that eyebrow was enough to make Stan feel like doing exactly what Magnus wanted. “I have to go. You catch up on the parts you missed – I won’t be back for a while.”

“Or I could use that time in other ways,” Benoit said, in a brightly innocent tone that was nothing of the kind. “I’m not in the tournament anymore.”

Stan swallowed, hard. Oh god, Magnus was right here, and there were some thoughts he certainly didn’t want to be having when Magnus was around. Or when he was going to have to face Neil soon, with Benoit’s insinuations about Neil’s crush still ringing in his ears. Or when… Basically, Benoit was a seriously complicating factor to his life.

But. 

“You do whatever you want to do,” he said, hoping and praying his voice hadn’t deepened enough for Magnus to notice. “I’ve got to go shower and then do press.”

“Have fun in your shower! I’ve got to go have some fun of my own,” Benoit said, his voice thick with glee, and Stan closed his eyes and hung up the phone before Ben could say _anything else_.

When he got out of a slightly too-cold shower – in which he steadfastly did nothing but get clean, because there was no way he was going to do _that_ and then saunter nonchalantly into a presser, whatever Benoit might insinuate - there were two texts from Benoit nestled amongst the usual collection of congratulations from friends and family. He clicked on the first, already smiling.

_i love you_

Even though it’d already been said, seeing the words written down in black and white was something else. Stan bit back a stupidly large grin and saved the text, then opened the second one.

_remember that when you see the lube all over the bedspread_

Stan laughed all the way into his presser.

~//~

_september_

Stan bites back a smile and resists the urge to pull out his phone. Both messages are safely saved, along with a handful of others that are too Benoit to delete.

The subject of the mystery he’s currently musing over is still in the showers. Stan supposes he could search his bags, but he could get caught at any moment, and he’s not that sort of person anyway. It’s just a little mystery, not the end of the world if he never finds out what’s going on. He’s a curious person, though.

He casts his mind back again, trying to remember what happened next, only to feel the flush mount into his cheeks as his memory snags on that night. That lovely night…

~//~

_night, 1st june_

By the time he let himself into their room that night, all obligations fulfilled and the rest of the evening his own, Stan had been trying very hard for some hours _not to think about_ Benoit, his activities, or the sinned-against bedspread. (Benoit and his activities for obvious reasons, the bedspread because it called up the image of their bed. Their bed was not a good thing to have suddenly pop into your mind when journalists were asking you serious questions, or when your physio was about to start massaging your thigh).

Stan was just congratulating himself on doing a pretty good job of ignoring Ben’s temptations, when his eyes adjusted to the dark room and he saw what waited for him.

“Come to bed,” was all Benoit said, but it was all he needed to say.

Stan dropped his things in the doorway and obeyed.

~//~

“What makes you think I’m even up for it tonight?” Stan asked, some time later, grinning, the curve of Benoit’s shoulder under his teeth and the curl of Benoit’s fingers around his bicep. “I’ve had a long day.”

“I’ve had a long day too,” Benoit said, indignantly. “You only had to play Jerzy. Yes, he’s a crazy unpredictable guy, but he’s not _nearly_ as good as you. I had to play Kei _and_ I also had to play the stupid umpire and his stupid vendetta…”

Stan cut him off by kissing the underside of his jaw, dragging his teeth across the spot that always made Benoit gasp. It’s not that Stan didn’t like a good tirade against wicked umpires. He did sometimes. But right now he had Benoit in his bed, Benoit under his fingers, Benoit against his mouth, and under such circumstances he preferred Benoit’s mind to be thoroughly fixed on him. Not on Enric Molina.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Benoit said in a strained voice, after gasping and tightening his fingers around Stan’s arm in a thoroughly satisfying manner, “I’m just saying, you’re not the only person who had a long day.”

Stan grinned against Benoit’s skin and nipped at his earlobe. “I don’t know. You had that nap.”

“Stan,” Benoit pleaded, almost a whine, and then abruptly seemed to lose his tattered strands of patience. His hands slid down Stan’s back and curved around his ass, pulling them flush together. 

Stan tipped his head back for a moment, trying to breathe. Was there anything quite as close to heaven on earth as the feeling of the man he loved shuddering in his arms as their cocks slid together, the sound of the man he loved letting out a bitten-off moan, the sight of the man he loved writhing underneath him, pulling him closer closer and closer still?

“Looks like you can get it up after all,” Benoit said, cheekily, his voice wobbling only slightly. He bucked his hips up, demanding and sure, and pinched Stan’s ass for good measure. His eyes were shining and his teeth white in the dim light that filtered through the curtains, and Stan thought he’d never seen anything hotter.

Letting Benoit win right away, though, wouldn’t have been any fun. Stan might be vastly overmatched at this teasing game, but that didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy trying to play it. He dropped his head to Ben’s shoulder for a moment. If he was ever to succeed at his continuing attempts to match his partner’s mastery, he needed to have _logic_ on his side.

Mustering logic was hard, though, when he had the smell of Benoit in his nose and Benoit’s cock hot and insistent against his own. “Maybe I _could_ get it up, but maybe I _shouldn’t_ ,” he tried after a few seconds, proud of himself for being able to still make that distinction despite all Ben’s distractions. “I’m still in the tournament, you know, and…”

“Is that supposed to be a dig at me?” Benoit interrupted, indignantly, and pinched Stan’s ass again, harder this time. 

Stan heard his own breath catch, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer. Not tonight. “No, no! Just, you know, conserving energy is important.” He thought of another argument and grinned against Benoit’s neck. “And maybe I shouldn’t have sex right now. Maybe I should try to stay hungry and unsatisfied. The experts say…”

“Don’t _even tease_ ,” Benoit said.

His voice made Stan catch his breath. He turned his head and caught Benoit’s mouth with his own, giving up the game.

When they pulled apart, Ben was already squirming beneath him, contorting himself to reach the bedside table. “I had fingers up my ass for _forever_ , and I didn’t let myself come _once_ , and you’re fucking me tonight, Stanley, or…or…or you can sleep on the couch!”

“You’re scary when you’re horny,” Stan observed, mildly.

“I’m hot when I’m horny,” Benoit said, supremely self-confident, and Stan cut off further discussion by taking the condom and lube from Benoit’s hand and leaning in to kiss him silly.

~//~

Stan slept the sleep of the satiated, all dark delicious blankness, and when he woke he wasn’t quite sure where he was.

They were tangled together in the last sheet, the others having joined the unfortunate bedspread on the floor for housekeeping. Benoit, as usual, had done his best imitation of a starfish (or an octopus, or some other sea creature with a lot of arms) and wound his limbs about Stan; Stan had one of Benoit’s arms cinched possessively around his waist, Benoit’s face smushed into the curve of his arm, and – most distractingly – one of Benoit’s legs insinuated between his own.

He blinked, flashing back.

_Benoit demanding that he go faster. The line of Benoit’s jaw as he threw his head back, and the impossible tightness of Benoit’s body opening to him; Benoit’s hands on his hips, iron grip, urging him deeper. The thumping of the headboard against the wall. The sheen of sweat on Benoit’s arms, Stan succumbing to temptation and bending down to lick it off, dragging his teeth over skin even as Benoit whimpered. Summoning all his control and slowing down so that he could savour it for a few more precious minutes, and Benoit’s immediate yowl of frustration and polite request for him to go fuck himself or let Benoit drive the car for a while. Benoit’s face as he slowly sank down on Stan’s cock, his eyes fluttering shut, his mouth falling open - the feeling of Benoit’s hips under Stan’s hands - Benoit’s grin when he got the hang of things and started setting a faster rhythm, slamming himself up and down again, his muscles bunching and flexing, Stan’s turn to groan helplessly - the feeling of Benoit’s cock under his hand and the sound of Benoit’s sobbing breath. Flipping them over again and finally giving Benoit what he’d been demanding, using all the muscles tennis had developed and all the leverage he could find, the bed protesting but who the hell cared, because Benoit was under him and about him and around him, urging him on, filthy stream of half-coherent words in his ear, and then Stan was turning his head to catch Benoit’s mouth, shuddering, falling…_

“Good morning,” Benoit said, his lips tickling Stan’s arm.

Stan didn’t jump, he didn’t, but maybe it was only because Benoit was still wound about him, anchoring him down.

“Good morning,” he echoed, sounding a bit stifled even to himself.

Benoit, looking for all the world like a cat who’d just got the cream – no, that wasn’t nearly self-satisfied enough – raked his eyes slowly down Stan’s body, then up again. “Seems like you’ve got a little problem there.”

“It’s not a _little_ problem,” Stan said, too quickly, because Benoit’s eyes were laughing.

“No?”

“You didn’t seem to think it was little when it was…” Stan started, indignantly, but he was cut off by one of Benoit’s long fingers against his lips.

“Shhh,” Benoit said, his voice light. “It’s morning. I have plans.”

“What kind of…” Stan started, but he was cut off this time by Benoit leisurely unfolding his long limbs and beginning to crawl down Stan’s body. Stan licked dry lips.

Outside, it was definitely morning; the Parisian dawn was peeking through their curtains. The broad expanses of Benoit’s nakedness were sun-kissed, beautiful, as he leaned down to press a gentle, feather-light kiss to Stan’s cock. 

Right now, Stan dared anyone in the world to do anything but love Benoit.

“Good morning,” Benoit told Stan’s cock, politely, then made it nod slightly in genteel response.

“Oh god, do it properly or not at all,” Stan said, fighting laughter, sliding his hand down to wrap it around the back of Benoit’s head, feeling the rasp of Ben’s beard under his palm.

Benoit grinned up at him, a sunbeam catching his smile. “I fully intend to do it properly.”

And he did.

~//~

_september_

Stan swallows.

He pulls out his phone, fingers tapping over the keys. _you make my life very difficult_.

It’ll be afternoon over in France. Benoit’s probably on a beach somewhere, and Stan knows from experience that Benoit’s idea of beachwear does not include much room for phones. He starts to put his phone back in his pocket, figuring he’ll check it later, when Benoit will have sloshed back ashore in search of burgers and alcohol.

But the phone buzzes before he can finish putting it away. 

_ahahahaha what have u done now_

Stan laughs under his breath. _nothing, just trying to figure something out and having trouble concentrating_

_because of me? this is normal_

Yes, yes it is, and Stan can see Benoit’s grin as he typed that, can smell the beach breeze and taste the tang of the ocean.

_are u trying to figure out nole for tomorrow? u work too hard_

Stan does, he supposes. Still, it’s landed him in the semifinals, which is kind of ridiculously awesome (to steal a Benoit phrase), so he can’t complain. He grins instead. _and what are you doing? working hard too? ;)_

There’s a pause before Benoit replies, and in it Stan can hear the shower shut off. He doesn’t have much longer before the subject of his mystery will reemerge.

 _is this ur roundabout way of wanting phonesex_ , Benoit texts, followed immediately by, _give me a minute bc erv is here & i hv to get rid of him_

Stan laughs, then realises he should clarify. Quickly. Before Benoit shoos Edouard off by telling him cheerfully that he’s going to have phonesex now. Because he would. _nooooooo not now_

His phone rings.

“Why don’t you want phonesex now?” Benoit says, before Stan can even say hello. “Phonesex is great. Even if you get shy sometimes.”

That’s not a criticism Benoit could ever level at himself. He’s utterly shameless. Stan likes it, but he knows he has quite a long way to go before he can manage anything like what Benoit can say with an utterly straight face. Meanwhile…Stan shuts his eyes. “Please tell me Edouard isn’t still there.”

“I sent him to get me food,” Benoit says, unworried. “By the way, I turned down a date with a supermodel yesterday, so a) being a tennis player rocks, and b) you totally owe me phonesex, because, hello, supermodel.”

Stan checks to make sure the door from the showers hasn’t opened yet. “Later, after practice. Right now I’m still trying to figure out something.”

Benoit sighs. “Fine. What are you trying to figure out?”

Stan bites his lip. It’s not even a concrete mystery, really, it’s just a question, just…

“Oh god, is this ‘what’s the matter with Richie’ again?” Benoit asks, and Stan can hear the eye-roll all the way across the Atlantic. “He’s _French_. We mope, we throw things, we act strangely, it’s just the way we are. It’s why people love us. And hey, he’s playing great now. Semifinals, _vive la France_! Obviously nothing’s wrong.”

Stan opens his mouth to start laying out the timeline for Benoit again – not that they haven’t had this conversation before, but the previous times Benoit was here in person, and Benoit has the irritating if ultimately pleasant habit of derailing conversations he finds boring by climbing into Stan’s lap. 

But he’s cut off this time by a different Frenchman. Richie opens the door from the showers.

~//~

_sunday, 2nd june, day between third and fourth rounds_

“Um,” Stan said, not entirely sure what an appropriate remark would be in this situation.

Benoit had happily abandoned him for the day to hang out with some of his Parisian friends, saying that not only was training boring, but also his immense seductive capabilities would obviously throw off Stan’s game. Stan thought that last night’s and this morning’s activities must have gone to his head, but he knew better than to try to tell Benoit that – Ben would have just made jokes about heads until Stan would have had to stop him by using what was fast becoming the patented Stan-kisses-Benoit-so-he’ll-shut-up technique. 

(Also, Stan had a sneaking suspicion that Ben was right. It was hard enough to focus on practice when there was a quarterfinal berth at Roland-Garros well within his reach. It would have been well-nigh impossible if Ben had been sitting on the sidelines giving him that well-satisfied smile or – worse – helping out as his hitting partner. There was only so much self-control Stan could muster.)

Anyway. None of this was helping Stan with the immediate problem, which was that he’d come face-to-face with Richie in the locker room for the first time since The Incident. 

He could have just walked away again, but Jo and Tommy were watching them from across the room, so that wasn’t such a great idea. (If he totally blanked Richie, they’d know something was up, and they wouldn’t leave him alone until they found out what. Stan thought Jo already basically knew – and Benoit had said something about a strange conversation Jo had had with him – but he doubted Tommy did, and he didn’t particularly want him to find out. Tommy was friends with _everyone_ , which was great, except when you didn’t want your business accidentally spread about. Stan wasn’t saying he was gossipy, except, well, he kinda was.) 

_Anyway_. The silence was getting awkwardly long. This was a problem, because if Stan didn’t walk away, the second option was to say something, and Stan didn’t have the slightest clue what to say. 

“Hi,” he finally said, haltingly.

_Multiple points for style, Wawrinka._

But Richie was smiling. A bit strained, but smiling. “Hi.”

“So, I, uh,” Stan said, and cursed himself. Then he cursed Benoit for good measure for going _go-karting_ and leaving him to deal with this all by himself. (Even in his brain, Benoit just waved back cheerfully.) 

Richie broke into Stan’s profane internal monologue. “It’s okay.” He made a small gesture of dismissal. “I was surprised, but it’s…it’s fine.”

Stan sunk onto the sofa next to him. This wasn’t exactly what he’d expected. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Richie said, and his eyes flicked over to where Tommy and Jo were. Apparently he decided that Tommy was a safe distance away and couldn’t overhear them (unless he had super-ears as well as super longevity), because he continued, “It’s fine.”

“We’re not…” Stan didn’t know why he felt the need to explain (of all the French guys, Richie had never been one of his closest friends), but he did somehow. He tried to find words, uncomfortably aware of Richie’s thoughtful eyes fixed on him. “I don’t want you to think that we’re just, you know.” He bit his lip. How to put this? “It’s not a casual thing.”

Richie smiled. It wasn’t the biggest of smiles, and there was something there that Stan couldn’t quite interpret (his interpretations were tuned into a different Frenchman at the moment), but it was definitely a smile. “It didn’t look like a casual thing.”

“No,” Stan said – and then abruptly found that he was grinning, really grinning. He’d never actually said it, not yet, but given that Richie already knew… “We’re together.”

For a second, Stan thought Richie’s answering smile was a little shadowed, but he must have been wrong, because Richie was reaching out to pat him on the arm. “Congratulations. He’ll keep you running, that one.”

“Don’t I know it,” Stan said, with feeling, glad to see Richie’s eyes crinkle with amusement as well. “Never date a younger person. I’ll be lucky if I have enough energy to even walk on court tomorrow, let alone give you a good fight.”

Richie mimed taking out an invisible notebook and writing down notes, licking the invisible pencil to get it started. Stan laughed and punched him lightly on the shoulder, not hard enough to do an ounce of damage. Across the room, Tommy looked disapproving, then turned back to Jo, waving his hand in front of his face to get his attention. Germans.

“Hey,” Richie said, his smile reaching his eyes this time, “I’ll take whatever advantage I can get. You’ve been playing crazy good lately.”

“You too. It should be a really good match whoever wins,” Stan said – or that’s what he would _usually_ have said, because he wasn’t known as one of the nicest guys on the tour for nothing, and politeness never killed anyone. He left trash talk to Mika, Ernie, and the Serbs.

That day, however, Stan found himself saying, “Scared, Richie?” 

For a moment he thought he’d offended him – he knew he should have stuck to the safe platitudes – but then Richie was laughing. “Benoit’s been a bad influence on you!”

“Yeah, I guess he has,” Stan said, grinning.

~//~

_september_

Unlike in June, he and Richie aren’t scheduled to play each other until the final. (And if they were to both get there, Stan thinks he’ll have solved what he’s unofficially dubbed the ‘Richie mystery’ – obviously Richie would have some sort of magic powers, to take down Rafa on this hot streak he’s got going, and probably the magic powers were keeping Richie up nights, to linger in his eyes and shadow his expressions.) 

“Hey,” Richie says, nodding to him. 

Looking at him properly for the first time all tournament – being in different halves, their schedules haven’t aligned until now – Stan begins to doubt himself. Richie looks fine. His eyes don’t look shadowed, and his mouth isn’t tightly drawn. His chin is up, rather than down, and there’s no absent-minded look in his face. Maybe Stan had just been imagining things, back in Roland Garros. Heaven knows he’d had enough stress and excitement to warp his perceptions, and even his relationship with Benoit had still been all shiny and new, not yet settled into the comfortable ease of nowadays. Maybe Stan had made it all up, or maybe Benoit was right to laugh and say that it was just Frenchies being French.

But it wasn’t just in Roland Garros...

Belatedly, Stan realises that he’s left Richie’s greeting hanging, and that Richie is now looking at him quizzically. He quickly nods back. “Hey.”

Courtesies exchanged, Richie walks past him to fetch his bags, then takes them over to a table on the other side of the locker room. _Probably wondering why I’m being so weird_ , Stan thinks, looking at the empty spots all around him.

But just then Richie not only sneaks a furtive glance up from his laptop, but actually flushes when he catches Stan’s eye.

Aha! Stan thinks, vindicated. There _is_ something going on. And if there’s something going on, he’s going to sit here and puzzle it out.

~//~

_night, 2nd june_

It was late when Benoit got back from dinner with his friends, or, if not exactly late, late by “holy crap I play a 4R match tomorrow” standards. Stan was already in bed, writing by the light of the bedside lamp, about to turn it off and go to sleep. (Or _try_ to sleep, rather; sleeping well the night before a big match could be elusive. Stan usually tossed and turned for hours before he managed to drop off.)

Benoit kicked off his shoes just inside the door, then picked them up and tossed them in the closet. “See, you’ve got me housetrained already!”

“I’m so proud,” Stan said, smiling.

“Next thing you know, I’ll be putting my clothes away instead of shedding them all over the floor,” Benoit informed him, before dropping onto the bed. It dipped as he clambered across it. “I’ll be an entirely new man. So changed you won’t know me.”

Stan rather doubted that.

Benoit took the notebook from Stan’s hand. “What’s this?”

“That,” Stan said, making an abortive grab for it, “is mine.”

Benoit held it above his head, out of Stan’s reach, until Stan conceded defeat and sunk back into the pillows. “Don’t tell me you’re doing opposition research the night before the match,” he said, looking suspiciously over at the TV, as if he suspected Stan of flipping it off as soon as he heard the key in the door. “You already know loads about Richie. It’s not worth worrying about now. And besides, it’s not like you can cram for tennis matches.”

“Sage words,” Stan said, dryly. “Now give me back my notebook.”

Benoit stuck his tongue out at him. “You didn’t answer the question.”

“I’m not doing opposition research,” Stan said. “Not exactly.”

“But it _is_ about Richie,” Benoit deduced, then crowed at the look on Stan’s face. “I’m so smart.”

Stan decided the best defence was a good offense. “Yes, you’re a genius,” he said, and pounced.

When Benoit was pinned under him, laughing and shoving at his chest, and Stan had recovered his notebook, he grinned down at his captive. “Didn’t see that one coming, did you?”

“You didn’t give me any warning,” Benoit complained. “Not fair.” He snuck devious fingers into Stan’s armpits and cackled as Stan jerked. “If you’re not fair, I’m not fair.”

Stan rolled his eyes, tossed the notebook to the floor, and got hold of the ticklish fingers. “You,” he said, leaning down for a kiss, “are incorrigible.”

A few minutes later, they broke apart, Stan remembering ruefully his own plans for energy conservation (if he was to have the slightest hope of getting to his first ever Roland Garros quarterfinal tomorrow, he needed to have a quiet night). The best laid plans, however, went oft awry around Benoit.

The man in question looked a bit pensive against the pillows, even as his fingers slowly carded through the back of Stan’s hair, feeling fantastic. “So you’re writing about Richie but you won’t tell me about it. Should I be worried?”

“I wasn’t writing about Richie,” Stan said. “Not exactly. I was making a list, trying to figure out if there’s a reason he’s been acting oddly recently.”

Benoit eyed him. 

“Shut up,” Stan said, laughing. “I know, it’s not what I need to be doing the night before our match. It’s just, I feel like there’s something off with him, and I want to figure out what it is.”

“Curiousity killed the cat,” Benoit quoted, arching his eyebrows in what must have been meant as a solemn pose. “Leave Richie alone and get down here and kiss me again.” 

When Stan hesitated, Benoit sighed. “It’s probably just stress, and anticipation for the match tomorrow. You know he doesn’t have a good record in the fourth round at slams. And it’s not like he’s always been the most level-headed of guys anyway.”

That was probably all it was, and Stan felt better almost immediately. 

Benoit seized the opportunity to lean up and kiss him.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Stan said, when Benoit drew back to breathe, his eyes sparkling, “but this can’t go anywhere tonight.” He thought. “Well, at least I can’t. I could help you out.”

Benoit traced the curve of Stan’s ear with one long finger, smiling faintly. “Or I could hold off too and help build anticipation for awesome victory sex tomorrow.”

Stan swallowed. “Well.”

Benoit leaned in again to drop a quick playful buss on Stan’s lips. “Besides,” he said, swinging himself out of Stan’s lap and padding over to the dresser he’d claimed as his, “we don’t have time for shenanigans. Or for psychoanalysing Richie, for that matter. It’s bedtime.”

Usually when Benoit stripped out of his clothes, there was much waggling of eyebrows and other body parts. This time, however, Benoit seemed intent on the task at hand. “Bedtime, huh,” Stan said, wetting suddenly dry lips, as Benoit shucked his underwear, stepped into sweatpants, and shrugged on a well-worn t-shirt.

Benoit’s smile was sunny. “Yes.” 

He looked incredibly delicious – well, didn’t he always – but even more than that, he looked incredibly cuddly. Stan knew how buttery soft those sweatpants were, and everyone knew old t-shirts were the best things ever. “Are you planning something?” he asked, suspiciously.

Benoit grinned, and climbed over Stan’s legs again to his own side of the bed. He could have gone around like a normal person, but then Ben was anything but a normal person. “You know the answer to that is always yes.”

Well. Forewarned was forearmed. “And right now?” He directed a significant look at Benoit’s choice of clothing.

“Just because I _almost_ always sleep naked doesn’t mean I _always_ sleep naked,” Benoit said, innocently, leaning over to turn off the light.

Stan raised an eyebrow.

“Fine,” Benoit said, sulkily, but he was grinning again, so he didn’t mean it. “I figured I could be a sort of human teddy bear for you.”

“…Please tell me that’s not a euphemism for something,” Stan said, faintly.

Benoit poked him in the side with a pointy finger. “No!” He chuckled. “Although I could probably think of…”

“ _Ben_.”

“Okay,” Ben said, climbing under the blankets and pressing close to Stan’s side. “Fine. I won’t finish that sentence. You’re so mean to me.”

After a minute, Stan prodded, “A teddy bear?”

“I always have trouble sleeping the night before a big match,” Benoit said, already sounding a bit sleepy. “I thought you might too.”

Stan thought about this. “So you put on cuddly clothes and decided to be a human teddy bear to help me sleep?”

“It sounds kind of creepy when you put it like that,” Benoit said, his voice a bit disgruntled, though he didn’t move away from where he was curled into Stan’s side, his finger tracing patterns on Stan’s shoulder.

Stan bit his lip.

“You know I can feel it when you laugh even if you’re not making noise,” Benoit complained.

“Teddy bears shouldn’t talk,” Stan said, but he relaxed into the pillows nonetheless.

Benoit’s clothes _were_ soft against Stan’s skin. But as Stan adjusted his position, burrowing under the blankets and rearranging his limbs into a comfortable sleeping posture, he thought that far more restful than the clothes themselves were Benoit’s own warmth and the close sleepy tallness of him. Stan’s bed and arms and heart had been empty for so long. Now they were filled almost to overflowing.

“Stop thinking,” Benoit said, with an enormous, supremely unattractive yawn (far too many teeth). “People are trying to sleep here.”

Stan dropped his head to pillow it on Ben’s shoulder. 

He didn’t think this would really work. Benoit wasn’t really a teddy bear. And even though his clothes were soft… even though the slow rhythm of his breath was lulling… even though the embrace of his arms was like a particularly lovely cocoon… … even though the gentle stroking of his fingers was like…was like…

“ _Dors, nounours_ ,” Benoit whispered, low rumble against his hair.

~//~

_september_

Stan sneaks another glance over at Richie. He’s on his laptop, fully engrossed in whatever he’s doing, fingers tapping away at the keys. He _looks_ fine…but there’s that skittish look up again, those ramrod straight shoulders, as if Richie knows he’s being observed and doesn’t like it. What’s he hiding?

 _are you sure richie’s fine?_ , he types, dropping his eyes back to his phone.

_u hung up on me, im not talking to u_

Stan sighs. _richie walked in. he’s acting suspicious._

Suspicious…now there’s a thought. Surely Richie isn’t doing anything he shouldn’t be. Doping, or match-fixing, or something. Not Richie. There was that incident with the cocaine – does anyone believe his story about testing positive because he kissed some girl in a club? – but that was years ago, and that was just recreational drugs. Richie’s not into anything seedy, is he?

His phone buzzes. _maybe bc theres a weirdo staring at him_

Stan laughs, the sound loud in the deserted room. Richie jumps a little, but doesn’t raise his eyes.

 _maybe you’re right_ , he texts back. 

_i thought u dropped this after rg. u are such a mother hen_

Stan frowns. _that better not be your new nickname for me_

He can picture Benoit cackling, even as the reply comes back immediately. _sucks to be u!! shouldnt hv hung up on me ahahahaha_

~//~

_monday, 3rd june, fourth round_

“Thanks,” Stan told Jo gratefully. It wasn’t as crowded as it had been last week, but navigating through the locker room was still difficult, especially with both arms full of bags and his phone in his hand. (Benoit hadn’t appreciated being told that his presence at the match would make Stan more nervous, so he was wreaking his revenge for being kept away ¬by texting up a storm.)

Jo grinned at him, still holding the door open. “Good luck today.”

“I bet you say that to everyone,” Stan said. If anyone had a reputation for being nicer than Stan had himself, that anyone would be Jo. He was a good egg. 

His phone buzzed again, and Stan distractedly said goodbye to Jo – who headed off in the direction of the lounge – and squinted down at the screen.

_im ordering pizza on ur roomservice bill_

Stan dumped his bags in his locker and turned, already typing. _go for it silly, just don’t leave the box anywhere i’ll ste-_

“Hey,” Richie said, a moment before Stan would have collided into Richie’s open locker door.

Stan was pretty sure that custom dictated you weren’t really supposed to talk to your opponent before a match, particularly a big one like this. Neither he nor Richie exactly made a habit of reaching QFs at slams, and whoever won the match today would be in one. You didn’t get much bigger stakes than that, particularly for Frenchmen, which might be why Richie’s face looked strained and his eyes a little wild.

Custom beside, though, it would be far too rude to blank him after the guy had just saved him from texting his way into a concussion. “Hey,” he replied, smiling. “Thanks. I really should watch where I’m going.”

Richie looked over Stan’s shoulder – perhaps for a Benoit-limpet – before returning his gaze to Stan and nodding toward his phone. “My cousin walked into a pool last month while texting her boyfriend.”

“Yeah,” Stan said, wincing. “I know someone who’s practically got one welded on his hand.”

Richie cocked his head slightly to one side. “Will he be there today?”

Ah yes. Stan didn’t have to talk around Benoit to Richie. It was a surprising relief. “No, I told him he’d make me nervous,” he said, a little ruefully. “Probably for the best. He’d have ended up throwing things at you, most likely.”

Richie shut his locker door. “Who says he’d have been rooting for you?” he shot back, quirking an eyebrow. “He’s French, and we stick together.”

Now there was a thought that hadn’t crossed Stan’s mind. Blood’s thicker than water, so the saying went, but was love thicker than nationality? Perhaps it was lucky he made Benoit stay away.

“Should I be afraid?” he asked, raising an eyebrow of his own to mirror Richie’s. “Are you bringing a whole posse of Frenchmen to sit in your box and shout rude things at me?”

That made Richie laugh, and the strain around his eyes eased a little. Perhaps all those missed chances at slams over the years had made him a bit gun-shy. The banter seemed to be helping, though. “I asked a few people, but you know how it is. Jo’s busy, and Nico’s probably going to still be on court with Mika.” His mouth had tightened again. Evidently the nerves were back. “I’m not sure I could rely on Nico to cheer for me anyway. You’ve stolen him away.”

Stan grinned. He liked Nico. “Too bad. You’d think they’d all want to come watch our Battle of the Backhands.”

“Don’t tell me _you’re_ calling it that now,” Richie said, and laughed, the tension ebbing out of his shoulders again.

“Let’s just make it a good one,” Stan said, cheerfully, and clapped Richie on the shoulder.

~//~

_september_

At least Richie’s not doing that odd up-and-down bit again, Stan thinks, looking over to where Richie is still sitting. He’s not looking over Stan’s shoulder for phantom people one moment, laughing calmly the next, and then going faintly white around the lips all over again. You’d think he’d be more nervous now, with a place in a grand slam final on the line tomorrow instead of just a quarterfinal, but even though he’s jumpy it’s at least an even jumpy.

Maybe it really is just that Richie’s aware of Stan staring at him and is weirded out by it. He could go over and apologise for staring, say he was just… What do you say when you think someone’s caught you staring and you don’t have a good reason?

_help, lend me some of your social skills_

Benoit doesn’t text back for a couple of long minutes, and Stan’s beginning to imagine him with his mouth buried in a juicy cheeseburger, his phone lying forgotten under a pile of wet and sandy towels, before Stan’s own phone rings.

“Look,” Benoit says, without preamble, “will it make you feel better if I call around and see if anyone else is worried about him?”

Stan bites his lip. “Can you do it without…you know…”

“Being creepy?” Benoit asks, and yes, there’s the sound of chewing. “Sweetheart, it’s me. Besides, he’s Richie, we’ve been keeping a solicitous eye on him for years.” 

Given that Benoit’s a good three years younger than Richie, Stan gives this all the credence it deserves. “And by ‘we’, you mean?”

“Gael and Jo and the rest,” Benoit says. “They’ll know if anything has happened to him this year. Besides his usual melancholy spells and the funk he went into after you whipped his butt at Roland Garros.”

Stan wonders if he should feel guilty for that. Maybe that’s one of the reasons he’s worried, besides being naturally disposed to be a ‘mother hen’ (as Benoit puts it). Maybe he feels subconsciously responsible. Losing from two sets up, with a QF on the line, is enough to drive any man a bit wonky, let alone a Frenchman. 

“Do you think I should drink an extra cocktail in your honour?” Benoit asks. “It might bring you luck. Oh, and ERV says he doesn’t know anything, except that Richie’s been more quiet than usual lately, always on his laptop and stuff.”

“Drink all the cocktails you like,” Stan says, resigned. “Although remember what you made me promise to do with you later.”

“Riiiiight.” Somehow Benoit manages to make one word sound both promising and dirty. “Okay. I’ll call round and see what people know.”

Stan puts the phone down and darts a glance back over at Richie, more out of habit than anything else.

Richie’s staring back at him.

~//~

_later on 3rd june_

Ninety-two winners, they told him later. He lost the first two sets and then something changed: he came alive, refusing to lose, battling for every point. Afterward, he could remember the match only in bits and pieces – not for him Rafa’s photographic memory of every point, not right away. He could remember one game where it felt like every single point was being decided by a winner, he and Richie doing battle like titanic adversaries, everlastingly-deuce and never-ending. He wondered if that’s what it felt like to be part of a Roger and Rafa match in their heyday, like everything you hit was magic but so was your opponent’s.

 _next time make it an even 100_ Benoit texted him.

Stan was leaning against a wall, smiling (he seemed unable to stop) and waiting for Richie to be done with press. He felt invincible, like he could have decided to fly and it would have happened. (He also felt like he’d been run over with a car, but then that was pretty standard. Even if this time the car might have been more like a lorry.)

If he’d been sappier he might have attributed the change mid-match to true love. ‘And they all lived happily ever after’ was the ending, right? He wasn’t sure what happily ever after meant in the tennis world, but a Roland Garros QF was a good start. Only the third QF of his career, and the first in more than two years, and reached like this! It was the perfect ending to a sports movie, he thought, laughing at himself, or a romantic comedy.

But it wasn’t like that, not really. He hadn’t sat on the sidelines after the second set and thought of Benoit, stress-eating pizza in their hotel room, shouting creative profanities at the TV screen. He hadn’t flashed back to Casablanca, to the time Benoit had broken their comfortable friendship by crossing the last bridge and leaning over the back of a couch for a kiss. He hadn’t found his centre and thought about all the love he’d been given and let it wash through him, bringing balm in its wake (or however else those new-agey pamphlets that someone kept leaving about in the locker room might put it).

He’d just breathed, and steeled himself, and refused to lose.

It was true that afterward, though, he’d looked instinctively up at his box, and…

The door opened, and Richie came in. He didn’t seem unhappy, exactly, but his face was set, his eyes looking somewhere in the middle distance. He brushed past Stan without seeming to even see him, going straight for his locker. 

Stan felt a pang of sympathy. Not guilt – he wouldn’t feel guilty after a match like that. It wasn’t like he’d wrested it away from an injured opponent or anything! Richie had fought tooth and nail, just as determined as he was to come out the victor, and when Stan had prevailed it had been because of his tennis, not because of any mind ploys or unfair tricks.

Sympathy, though, was something else. Stan knew what it was like to lose matches like this.

He was hesitating, wanting to say something but unsure if Richie would want to hear anything he had to say, when Richie decided matters for him by looking up and smiling wryly. It wasn’t a very good smile, but it was still a smile. “Good match.”

“Best match of the tournament, they’re saying,” Stan told him, grateful for the smile. “You were incredible.”

Richie laughed. It was less convincing than the smile. “Rafa’s matches are the best of the tournament, I think.”

Stan tried to be more Benoit-like – Benoit always put everyone at ease. “Yeah, but Rafa’s matches aren’t really very fun to watch. He’s just too good on clay – he makes everyone look they should be playing Challengers, at least in the early rounds. Fuck, he makes _me_ look like I should be playing a Challenger.”

That did make Richie grin, so Benoit-style seemed to work. “Have fun playing him in the quarterfinal.”

“No one told me I’d have to play _him_ next,” Stan said, in mock dismay. “Quick, do you think we can catch the scorekeepers and convince them that I actually retired from the match before match point and that you’re Rafa’s next sacrificial lamb?”

Richie shut his locker and turned, a towel slung over his shoulders, still smiling faintly. “Say hi to Benoit for me.”

“Sure,” Stan said, automatically, watching him walk toward the showers, his shoulders proudly back, his head held high.

It was just nerves, and now disappointment, Stan told himself. Richie wasn’t acting any more kicked-puppy than he usually did – was he?

~//~

_september_

Stan jerks his gaze away from Richie’s. 

_hurry up he caught me looking at him_

_ahahaha u would be such a bad spy_

Stan’s beginning to wish that someone would come in. Anyone. Rafa. Novak. Rafa & Novak. (This is the problem with being in the semifinals. There just aren’t a lot of players milling about. Although there are still dubs people…but Radek & Leander have some sort of strange dubs-bonding thing going on that requires they spend all their time together, and he thinks Alex & Bruno had an early practice session today.) 

His phone rings.

“Are you wearing a black mask yet?” Benoit asks.

“A black mask?” Stan says, blankly.

“For spy work,” Benoit says. Stan can hear the laughter of children playing in the background, and he imagines Benoit on a beach, sandcastles going up and surf coming in. One part of him wishes he could be there right now, whiling away the hours with Ben, but most of him is very happy to be where he is, even if it means dealing with a jumpy and now suspicious Frenchman.

“I’m pretty sure spies don’t wear black masks,” he tells Benoit.

“I’ll get you one for later,” Benoit says, comfortably. “Anyway. Gael says that he thought Richie was acting strangely at Roland Garros too, but that he’s okay now. Mika made a raunchy comment that you don’t want to hear about him finding a new boyfriend.”

Stan sighs. “Why does Nico hang out with him anyway?”

“Just because we’re French doesn’t mean we’re _all_ awesome,” Benoit informs him. “Just most of us. Mika is our embarrassing old uncle. And Nico puts up with him because he’s awesome at dubs.”

“What does Nico think?”

“About Richie? I couldn’t reach him at first – he was out on a date with that supermodel I was telling you about.”

“I thought you were kidding about the supermodel,” Stan says, impressed despite himself. 

“Everything I ever say is true,” Benoit says. “Anyway, I got through eventually -”

“How?”

Benoit laughs. “I have my ways,” he says.

“He means,” and that’s Edouard’s voice, probably from the next beach chair over, “that he texted Nico to ask if he thought it’d be a good idea to arrange for your locker to be filled with rose petals.”

“Nico’s a sweet guy, but far too gullible,” Benoit says, complacently. “He called back immediately to tell me no, it wouldn’t be a good idea. As if I’d do that. I’d be more likely to fly over and put _myself_ in your locker.”

He would. “What did Nico say about R…you know?” He doesn’t think sound would carry over to Richie – Richie’s talking to someone on his laptop, and Stan can’t make out any words – but he’d rather not take any chances.

“He just laughed and wouldn’t tell me anything,” Benoit says, and Stan can hear the pout. “And Jo wouldn’t even pick up his phone. I texted him the same thing about the rose petals, but he didn’t fall for it. Am I losing my touch? First I play like crap, and now no one will talk to me?”

Stan leans back further into the sofa. “I’ll talk to you.”

It must have come out rather softer than he intended, because there’s a moment’s silence, and then Benoit says, without a trace of the earlier pout, “I know.”

They sit in companionable silence for a moment, before Benoit clears his throat. “Should I keep calling people? I could try Jeremy, or Julien, or Gillou…”

“I’ll just ask him,” Stan interrupts. He feels more sure of himself now.

“Okaaaay,” Benoit says, drawing out the word.

Stan’s not entirely sure about this either. But it’s ask straight out or sit around all morning rehashing everything that’s happened since Roland Garros, and of the two options he prefers the former.

“Good luck,” Benoit says, cheerfully. “Keep me on the line, I want to hear what…”

Stan hangs up on him.

~//~

_tuesday, 4th june, day before quarterfinals_

According to Benoit, you couldn’t call something a ‘celebratory breakfast’ if it was a) in the hotel restaurant, b) healthy, and c) had coaches along. (He’d added “and d), if I can’t eat it off you,” but Stan omitted that part when he told it as a joke to Magnus and Lionel over fresh fruit and coffee.)

“I was right, though,” Benoit said, stealing a strawberry from Stan’s plate and keeping a beady eye out for a waiter. They’d been running late – a morning roll in the sheets, and then Benoit couldn’t find one of his shoes – and the fact that Magnus hadn’t ordered croissants when he made the breakfast order apparently rankled. “It’s Pariiiis. If we wanted to celebrate, we should have gone to this little place I know in the…”

“The hotel is fine,” Stan told Magnus, and guarded his plate against further thievery.

Magnus and Lionel exchanged glances. Lionel looked amused, Magnus resigned, and Stan realised with a sinking feeling that they must have been talking about him and Benoit while they waited for them. If Magnus & Lionel ever overcame their language barrier and teamed up, he and Benoit would be in trouble.

“Besides my other reasons,” Benoit said, obviously not convinced, “e) a lot of other players stay here. How can we celebrate properly when the dude you just beat is sitting right over there?”

Neither Magnus nor Lionel batted an eye at the missing letter d). Stan hoped that meant they’d forgotten, and not that they’d rumbled the two of them. (Although the fact that Benoit was nonchalantly holding his hand under the table…it was only a matter of time, if they hadn’t figured it out already.)

Benoit was right. Richie _was_ sitting nearby, though thankfully out of earshot. He was tucked into a corner booth across from Jo, who was evidently trying to cheer him up.

“ _They_ have croissants,” Benoit said, mournfully.

“Next time I’ll order you one,” Magnus told him, his voice dry.

Benoit beamed at him. “Good.”

Stan barely heard them. He was trying to watch Richie without being obvious about it. He didn’t look good, and that was by standards of ‘just lost an important match yesterday’. Richie’s airplane ticket was on the table in front of him, and he was playing with it, his fingers worrying the edges. His food looked untouched, and Jo’s face was worried.

It’s just disappointment from yesterday, Stan told himself. He’ll get over it. Next time I see him, he’ll be his old self again.

~//~

_september_

But he wasn’t his old self the next time Stan saw him, and he hasn’t been his old self since.

Still, it’s harder than Stan thought it would be to make himself get up from the sofa and go over to Richie. How’s he even going to start that conversation? “You’ve been acting strangely ever since Roland Garros. Is it cocaine? Doping? Girlfriend trouble? Tennis trouble? Family trouble?”

Ugh.

He stares down at his phone. He can’t call Benoit back – Benoit would probably say something like “just go hug him,” and that’s not really Stan’s style. No, he has to do this on his own.

He’s distracted, though, by his phone’s background, and despite his current determination to get to the bottom of the Richie mystery, he can’t help himself from sliding, smiling, back into his memories.

~//~

_wednesday, 5th june, quarterfinals day_

“Come to the match today,” Stan said, impulsively. (He’d already been halfway into the bathroom, towel slung over his arm, but he couldn’t help turning back for one last look, and the question had spilled out.) 

Benoit, sprawled resplendently amongst the pillows with an assortment of breakfast foods, smiled up at him. There was a little smear of chocolate on his cheek from the pastry he was currently devouring, and Stan resisted the urge to drop both the towel and his pure intentions and go lick it off. It would have been so easy, and so delicious, to remove Benoit’s breakfast to the table and then tackle its owner back into the sheets, putting off the morning ahead for a few more perfect minutes.

But he didn’t have those few more perfect minutes, he had about twenty before Magnus or Sev (or both) would arrive to sweep him off for quarterfinals day. And he had to shower.

It was just hard to remember what he had to do when Benoit was looking at him like that - like he was tastier than the tastiest pastry in the entire world.

“Come to the match?” Benoit repeated, licking his finger contemplatively. “Last time you said I’d be a distraction.”

“I’m going to get _destroyed_ ,” Stan said, bluntly. To everyone else, to the media and the fans and the locker room, even to Magnus and Sev (who surely knew better), he could put on the sportsman’s face and pretend that he had a hope in hell. Perhaps he’d have one of the most magic days of his life (unlikely to have two such magic days in one week, but anything was possible). Perhaps Rafa’s knee would give out. Perhaps Rafa would have acquired perfectly-fitting shorts for the first time ever and be so thrown off by the inability to pick them out of his butt that he’d be spooked and somehow vulnerable. (That last was maybe a little far-fetched. Not much more far-fetched than the others, though.)

Anyone else would have come back with some admonition for Stan to think positively and believe in himself. Benoit just smiled, not meanly, and took another giant bite of pastry. “Yeah, you probably are,” he said, through his mouthful. 

“You look really attractive spraying crumbs everywhere,” Stan said, distracted.

Benoit’s smile turned into a grin. “I always look attractive.”

And again, they weren’t going down this road, but Stan’s self-control was seriously starting to fray. He could have told Magnus he, um…but he couldn’t think of a single good reason for not beginning the day on time that didn’t involve the fact that his boyfriend was criminally good-looking. Stan doubted Magnus would understand. 

“Come to the match,” he repeated instead.

“Because you’re going to get destroyed?” Benoit asked, raising an eyebrow. “Why am I coming to watch you get destroyed when you wouldn’t let me come watch you and Richie?” He looked woefully down at his remaining bite of pastry and spoke to it as if it were a close friend. “He plays in one of the best matches of the year and wins it and I wasn’t even there. What a guy.”

Stan sighed. “I’ve got to shower so I’m ready when Magnus gets here. You obviously can’t go to the door.”

“In my glorious nakedness?” Benoit said, grinning. “Hey, he’d forget to scold you for running late.”

Stan kept to the topic with desperate calm. “Just, come to the match.” 

_Because when he destroys me it’s going to hurt. I’ll need you there, in my box, smiling at me, to remind me that everything’s still going to be okay, it’s just a match. Just a match._

“Okay,” Benoit said, simply, hands stilling in the act of fishing out all the grapes from the assorted fruit. “I’ll come.” 

~//~

“Hey,” Benoit said, when Stan emerged from the bathroom, rubbing gently at his damp hair.

The food had been tidied away and the bed returned to some semblance of order (although Stan doubted Benoit would ever win any prizes for ‘best housekeeping’). Benoit had even put clothes on, which was a relief to Stan’s frayed self control. Not that Benoit couldn’t threaten Stan’s self control while clothed…

But Benoit was still talking. “I thought,” he said, turning something over in his hands, “that maybe you could wear these today.”

‘These’ turned out to be a pair of Bjorn Borg briefs, loud and stylish and nothing like what Stan wore normally. They screamed Benoit to him, even though he knew they were a popular choice in the locker room, and for a second all Stan could see were the many times he’d pulled them off Benoit’s body, the many times he’d flung them haphazardly over his shoulder.

“Will these even fit?” he asked, licking suddenly dry lips.

Benoit put his hands on his hips indignantly. “Look, I know you’re proud of how hung you are and everything, but I promise, your dick isn’t so big it needs _specially-sized underwear_.”

“That’s not what I meant, god,” Stan said, laughing, trying not to snort, failing. 

Benoit’s theatrical annoyance softened. “Try them on, then.”

Stan swallowed, dropped the towel on the bed, started to step into the briefs. Then stopped. “Wait, are these like your lucky underwear or something? Because if they are, _please_ tell me you wash them.”

“So suspicious,” Benoit said, picking up the wet towel up from the bed and launching it in the direction of their laundry hamper. He missed, badly. “I promise, they’re clean.”

They actually did fit. Stan was surprised, because he was definitely more heavily built than Ben, but apparently underwear was forgiving.

Benoit looked him up and down. His leer was surprisingly well contained today. “Nice.”

“Thanks,” Stan said, smiling back at him, before turning to rummage in his things for the rest of his clothes. 

“They’re not my lucky underwear, by the way,” Benoit said, from behind him. “They’re yours.”

“How’s that work?” Stan asked, only half-listening, mind already beginning to tick into his gameday checklist. 

Benoit’s hand was cool on his shoulder, and Stan turned back to him. “They’re your lucky underwear,” Benoit said, “because I bought them for you.” 

(That explained why they fit. Stan had known there was no way he and Ben wore the same size underwear. He had an ass.)

“And I wrote my name inside the waistband,” Benoit continued, the look in his eyes something indescribable, hot and possessive and affectionate somehow all rolled up into one.

Stan had been doing such an excellent job with his self-control this morning – under extreme duress, he might have added – but _how_ was he supposed to resist that? It was impossible.

Ben tasted like grapes, and chocolate…

The knock on the door sounded like thunder.

“Oh,” Benoit said against his mouth, sounding guilty and amused all at once, “I should’ve mentioned that Magnus texted you while you were in the shower, saying he’d be here in five minutes.”

“Fuck.” He was standing here in his underwear, probably having _obviously_ just been kissing someone as if his life depended on it, and now Magnus was here?

Benoit patted his cheek. “I’ll answer it.”

As Stan frantically pulled on shorts and a tshirt, he heard Benoit at the door. “Hello, Magnus! I brought Stan his breakfast. Yes, very healthy. But I got pastries for me – d’you want one?”

Luckily Benoit’s chatter seemed to amuse Magnus. He came in, accepted Benoit’s offer of the remaining pastry, and waited for Stan to get his things together. He didn’t even seem to notice Stan’s slightly quickened breath or rumpled hair. (Perhaps, Stan thought darkly, he really noticed _everything_ and was simply choosing not to comment for reasons of his own. Never underestimate Magnus.) 

“Hurry up, slowpoke,” Benoit said, grinning at him. “You’ve got a match to play today, in case you forgot.”

How could Stan have forgotten? 

“Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “let’s go.”

~//~

Stan got destroyed. Rafa was – Rafa.

But when he looked up at his box Benoit was there, smiling at him.

(It was a perfectly innocent smile, and all the while Stan was wearing a pair of underwear with Ben’s name scrawled inside the waistband, touching his skin, and all the while Ben was in Stan’s box, sitting next to Sev and Magnus, calm and quiet and resolute.)

Stan flung himself after another of Rafa’s rockets, smiling despite the score.

~//~

“We should have a sign,” Stan said, pausing in the act of uncapping his suncream lotion. 

They had one last moment to themselves, here in the pause before the match. Sev and Magnus were talking to each other, and this was the last time Stan would see Benoit before he was either crushed by Rafa or borne gloriously into the semifinals. (He knew which one it would be.) Perhaps that was why he’d gone a bit silly all of a sudden.

Benoit obviously thought he was silly. “A sign?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“You know,” Stan said, a little sheepishly. “Like, ‘cheer up’, or ‘try more drop shots’, or…” He couldn’t say some things here and now, even if Sev and Magnus were distracted. “Or ‘you’re still a good player even though you’ve never taken a set off Rafa ’.”

Benoit made an exasperated sound with his tongue and took the tube of suncream still hanging inert from Stan’s hand. “Self-pity’s not a good look on you, Stanley.”

His fingers were cool on Stan’s cheeks as he spread the cream across them, and Stan fought to keep his eyes open, because dropping them shut would have been plain as day to anyone who saw this, Ben’s fingers stroking like a caress.

Stan wondered if it wasn’t plain as day anyway.

“One,” Benoit was saying, even as his fingers continued to rub the cream in, “you should always cheer up. Two, you should always try more drop shots, because they’re awesome. Three…” He capped the bottle of lotion and looked straight at Stan. “You’re _always_ a good player, even if you lose a _hundred_ sets to Rafa.”

“A hundred sets, huh,” Stan said, and he would have laughed except there was this thing in his throat.

“Yeah,” Benoit said, grinning, and pressed the tube back into Stan’s hand, fingers lingering for a split second.

A flash went off, and he turned to see Lionel with a camera.

“Don’t tell me you’ve joined the paparazzi too,” Benoit told him, putting his hands on his hips.

Lionel ignored him. “Good luck,” he told Stan.

Stan was ready.

~//~

From the stands, Benoit was smiling, and it was a perfectly innocent smile.

They’d never needed a sign, Stan thought. They’d already had one.

He smiled back.

~//~

_september_

Stan looks down at his phone background, at Benoit grinning at him, at Benoit’s fingers dragging suncream across his cheeks, at his own besotted smile in return, and feels the ghost of that smile flitting across his own face. Lionel makes a good paparazzo. And June was a good month…

He wrenches his mind back to the matter at hand with a jerk. He could almost believe that it had just been nerves and disappointment at Roland Garros, except that it hadn’t ended there. Richie’s been strange all this summer: jumpy, flushing at odd moments, watching over Stan’s shoulder – the list doesn’t stop. Recently he’s added abstracted little smiles and laptop-addiction to the tally (though Stan can’t blame him much for the latter – he’s tethered to his phone himself). 

Maybe Richie’s addicted to online poker and embarrassed about it for some reason? But with Rafa into poker and other players trying it out as well, surely Richie wouldn’t be embarrassed about that. Unless he’s losing all his money at it, Stan supposes. A possibility. 

Or maybe it’s a secret Russian girlfriend. Or boyfriend, despite all Richie’s past protestations that he isn’t gay. Everyone knows he’s at least bisexual. 

Actually, now that Stan thinks about it, Richie hasn’t asserted his heterosexuality in years now. For a while, after all the gay rumours, he’d been thumping his Straightness on an almost weekly basis. (If it had been anyone else, everyone would have rolled their eyes. Since it was Richie, and everyone felt a bit sorry for the way the media had treated him, they put up with it and patted him soothingly, hoping he’d eventually feel comfortable being himself.)

But if it’s a secret Russian boyfriend, that would explain why Richie slams shut his laptop whenever anyone comes near him. It would explain why he looks over Stan’s shoulder, as if scoping out the landscape – probably watching out for media. It would explain why he’s so jumpy, and the odd flushes. And it would definitely explain the abstracted little smiles. (Stan isn’t so far removed from the first bloom of his relationship with Benoit that he doesn’t remember what it was like to go around feeling like a grin was constantly struggling to break out across your face.)

That decides it. If it’s a secret Russian boyfriend, Richie should know that he has Stan’s total support. _About time_ , a lot of people would say, but not Stan. He’s just happy that Richie’s found someone at last. 

Benoit doesn’t pick up until the fourth ring. “You hung up on me again.”

“Sorry,” Stan apologises. “I think I’ve figured it out.”

“Yeah?” Benoit asks, sounding intrigued despite his pique.

“It’s a secret Russian boyfriend,” Stan tells him, keeping his voice down to a conspiratorial whisper. A vision of the boyfriend swims into his head, looking a bit disconcertingly like Marat Safin.

Benoit sounds sceptical. “Why Russian?”

Actually, Stan’s not sure why he thinks the mysterious boyfriend’s a Russian. He hastily backpedals through his logic, trying to find that link.

“Although the boyfriend part would explain something Benny said -” Benoit starts, thoughtfully.

Stan never does get to find out what Benny said, though, because someone clears their throat, and he looks up to see Richie standing in front of him.

“I’ll call you back,” he tells Benoit, hearing a faint _not again!_ before he hangs up.

“Hi,” Richie says, with an arched eyebrow.

~//~

“Hi,” Stan repeats, swallowing.

Richie, for once, doesn’t seem abstracted. He’s not glancing over Stan’s shoulder, or flushing oddly. He just looks amused. “So, do you want to tell me why your boyfriend is calling all our friends asking what’s wrong with me?”

That’s not what Stan had expected – he’d thought his voice had carried on the ‘Russian boyfriend’ bit – but perhaps he should have. The French gossip mill always got around to everyone eventually. “Uh...” he says, cogently.

Richie sets his laptop down on the couch next to Stan so that he can cross his arms. “Explain.”

Stan licks his lips. “It’s not his fault. I asked him to.” Richie doesn’t look like this is a surprise. “I was worried about you.”

“Why?”

Having to express it in words makes it all seem very silly suddenly. “You just seemed…worried. Distracted. Conflicted? I don’t know. I probably imagined it all. But recently you’ve been so jumpy, and I just thought, maybe you needed a friend to notice and offer to help. I’ve been there.” He remembers the bad days immediately after his separation from Ilham. He’d needed all the help he could get.

Richie’s arms are still crossed. “So you appointed Benoit head sleuth?”

“Probably a bad idea,” Stan admits.

Richie frowns. “It wasn’t an attempt to throw me off my game for tomorrow?”

“No!” Stan says, appalled. “Besides, I don’t even play you unless we both reach the final. Which is unlikely. And I’m not on Rafa’s payroll.” He sighs. “Believe me, I was just trying to help. Sorry. I shouldn’t have stuck my nose in your business.”

Richie keeps a gimlet eye on him for a moment longer before thawing. “I believe you.” He rubs his forehead. “Next time just ask, okay? Your staring is unnerving.”

“I will,” Stan says, gratefully. A thought occurs to him. “Who told you Benoit was asking around, anyway? Was it Nico? I bet it was Nico.”

And, oddly, Richie flushes.

“It was me,” the laptop says, from its forgotten perch on the couch next to Stan.

Stan jumps about a foot, which makes Richie laugh, although the flush is still staining his cheeks. He turns the laptop around so Stan can see, refusing to make eye contact when Stan looks questioningly at him.

Jo grins at him from the Skype screen, flashing him a peace sign. “I got the strangest texts from your boyfriend. Someone needs to teach him how to punctuate. Also, rose petals? Really?”

But Stan barely hears him, because he’s beginning to get a wild suspicion.

Jo, bare-chested and in comfortable sweatpants, sitting on his bed. Richie, still studiously averting his eyes, his cheeks fire-red. 

Jo, leaving the locker room as Stan came in, Richie’s eyes lingering over Stan’s shoulder. Jo, comforting Richie over breakfast after his loss to Stan. Richie, conflicted and upset, and then suddenly distracted and bestowing abstracted little smiles on everyone. Jo, gone from the tour temporarily because of injury; Richie, addicted to his laptop yet slamming it shut whenever people got near.

Jo, who is grinning at him. Richie, who is still not meeting his eyes, but whose mouth looks to be trembling on the edge of a grin as well.

“Oh my god,” Stan breathes, channelling his inner Benoit. “Oh my _god_.”

“Surprise,” Richie says, his voice jittery with nerves.

Stan gets up and pulls him into a hug before Richie knows what’s happening.

“Oi, hands off my man,” Jo says, laughing.

Stan ignores him. “Congratulations,” he tells Richie, sincerely.

“Thanks,” Richie says. He still looks monumentally embarrassed, but he’s smiling through it, as if he can’t quite help himself. 

Stan lets go of him and steps back. “Sorry again for butting into your business,” he says, directing it at both of them.

Richie rubs the back of his neck. “Well, I walked in on you and Benoit, so I suppose that makes us even.” 

Ah. Benoit. “I won’t tell…”

“You can tell him,” Richie says. He flushes again. “We’re starting to tell a few people. And he’d get it out of you anyway,” he adds, ruefully.

They all know what Benoit can be like. “If you’re sure.”

Richie looks at Jo, still beaming up at them out of the Skype window, and Stan recognises the softness in his eyes. “I’m sure.”

~//~

“Oh,” Benoit says.

Stan had expected a bit more pyrotechnics. “Oh?” he repeats.

“It _had_ crossed my mind,” Benoit explains, “but it’s been so long, I really thought he might be over it by now.”

“It _had not_ ,” Stan starts indignantly, before the last part catches up with him. “Wait, what?”

Benoit hums, and Stan can hear the roar of a football match on in the background. “Well, Jo’s been smitten with him for forever.”

“What,” Stan says.

“He told me a while ago when he was drunk,” Benoit says.

Stan closes his eyes and prays for patience. “And you didn’t think to tell me this when I’ve been worrying about Richie all summer?”

“You haven’t been worrying about him all summer,” Benoit points out. “Not nonstop, anyway. Just occasionally when you see him. Which hasn’t been that often because neither of you have been going particularly far in tournaments – until now, of course, which is wonderful…”

“Ben.”

“I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone,” Benoit says, simply.

Stan doesn’t have an answer to that. 

He thinks about new relationships and maturing ones, about friendship and romance. He thinks about waking up in bed with Benoit starfished over him, and about looking up mid-match to see Benoit smiling down at him from his box. He thinks about Richie’s nervousness and happiness, about Benoit’s loyalty, about Jo’s perseverance.

“You’ve gone all silent on me, Stanley,” Benoit says, after a long minute. He can hear the crunch of potato crisps.

Stan smiles. “I’m glad for them,” he says, the words simple, but he knows Benoit will understand.

“Me too,” Benoit says, crunching his crisps. “No!” he shouts, presumably at the TV.

“I miss you,” Stan says, impulsively.

He has to go out in a few minutes and do an interview, because outlasting Roger and making it to his first semifinal has sort of made him a celebrity. It’s kind of an odd feeling, but also a totally awesome one at the same time. Though the media attention is getting a bit overwhelming.

“Well, if you can get away later...” Benoit says, and somehow manages to make the words sound lewd.

Stan snorts a laugh, leaning against the wall and resting his head against its cool solidity. “You’d choose me over the football?”

He sees Magnus coming down the corridor. Tennis beckons again.

“Always,” Benoit says.

~//~

_wednesday morning, 5th june_

“Are you awake?” Benoit asked, his voice hushed and sleepy, molasses-rich. 

Quarterfinals day, and he’d face Rafa later, but for now Stan was the only place in the world he wanted to be. Not Philippe Chatrier, or Centre Court at Wimbledon, or Arthur Ashe in New York, or the Rod Laver Arena in Australia.

“I am now,” he said, and tipped his head down to rest it on Benoit’s shoulder.

Benoit’s arms tightened around him. They dozed together in the early dawn sunshine, letting Paris pass them by for a few more precious minutes. The world could wait.

Stan was home.

~//~

_saturday, 7th september, semifinals day_

“Are you ready?” Magnus asks.

“Just about,” Stan says. “You go on up to the box. I’ll be fine.”

He pulls out his phone one last time. He’ll have to stow it in his locker in a minute and pick up his bags for the journey through the tunnel and out onto Arthur Ashe, out into the semifinal of a grand slam, with Novak across the net and thousands of fans in the stands.

But there’s something he needs to do first.

 _i’m wearing the underwear you gave me in roland garros_ , he types, and smiles.

_well now i wont be able to concentrate on ur match thaaaanks_

Across the room, Richie is doing stretches, his laptop tucked into the bag nearest him. He waves at Stan, grinning shyly. Stan grins back.

_aren’t you going to wish me luck?_

_u dont need luck. ur awesome._

His phone buzzes again just as he’s sticking it in his locker, and he should really be packing up now, but he looks at it.

_just wanted to remind u that i love u_

Stan smiles and sends back, _i know_.

~//~

He steps out onto Arthur Ashe, and the crowd roars.

He doesn’t know if he’ll win today. He does know that he’ll give it his all. 

Stan grins. It’s a beautiful day.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [just call my name and I'll be there](https://archiveofourown.org/works/982579) by [krisherdown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/krisherdown/pseuds/krisherdown)




End file.
